I often get in the shower or sit in the tub when I feel stressed. I stand there, imagining I am washing away all the troubles and stress while asking for a freshness, a newness to come over my life.

The other day I was out running errands and it started to rain. I did not have a raincoat on and I was not carrying an umbrella. Some voice in my head told me to pause there in the parking lot and lift my face up to the sky. The drops were cold (it is winter) but the intentional choice of allowing the rain to hit my skin did create a momentary change in me.

I decided to spend the next few seconds just breathing in and out while the rain fell softly on my head and dripped down my face. Then I sat in my car and watched as each individual raindrop hit the windshield in a continuous rhythm and pattern. I sat there recalling summer rains where when you walk outside you can smell the air, fresh and clean. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound the rain was making imagining this symphony of nature. Just sitting there in my car I felt a connection to nature, to the world around me and to my innermost self.

This simple act of noticing is meditation. Our life, each breath, hour, day, month, year, all are like those raindrops creating the whole of our existence. Think about each action, each choice and accomplishment like a drop in the bucket of your life. It is in these small and sometimes seemingly understated times that we grow. Nothing is in isolation. Everything somehow works together along with us. Maybe the next time you listen to the rain you can allow it to speak to you too. Rain is not just water that you need as physical sustenance, you need it to nourish your spirit as well.

“Consciously using our senses to feel nature’s healing energy as it comes to us in the form of rain is an act of internal cleansing. Just as the rain physically washes over the earth and rinses out any impurities and imperfections, so it also bathes our spirit in the joy that comes from knowing that we are in fact one with the world around us.”

This short poem is about saying goodbye to regret.

washing day

her regrets were dust.
they cocooned her
in an arid cloud
of failed feelings
and missed chances.
she was gasping for breath
when a gentle rain
washed them away.

Author Unknown